ABOVE: Tommy Kirk in “Old Yeller.” Photo via Disney/Twitter.
A former child actor who was a rising star in films distributed by the Walt Disney Studios in the late 1950’s and into the mid 1960’s passed away Sept. 28 at his home in Las Vegas.
Thomas ‘Tommy’ Kirk was best known for his starring role as Travis Coates in the classic 1957 Disney film “Old Yeller” and its sequel, “Savage Sam.”
Kirk was part of the stable of young people mentored by Walt Disney himself and studio producers that were extremely popular and included other actors such as Kirk Russell, Hayley Mills and his co-star in the 1959 Disney film ‘The Shaggy Professor,’ Annette Funicello.
Throughout his career as an actor Kirk struggled with hiding his sexual orientation. In a 1993 interview with Starke, Florida-based film and theatre journalist Kevin Minton, titled “Sex, Lies, and Disney Tape: Walt’s Fallen Star,” Kirk said that he knew his sexuality would create problems with his career as well as with his “strict Baptist parents.”
“I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy” Kirk said. “I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn’t until the early ‘60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated.”
Minton wrote that Kirk describes his early sexual exploration as “desperate and miserable.” Mostly brief encounters and teenage affairs, very “back alley kind of things.”
According to Kirk, “When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to change. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that is was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. Eventually, I became involved with somebody and I was fired.”
“Disney was a family film studio and I was supposed to be their young, leading man,” he said. “After they found out I was involved with someone, that was the end of Disney.”
It was 1964 and Kirk was 23 and found himself “box office poison.” His movies now would range from cute, campy fluff such as “Pajama Party” in 1964 to horrible movies like “Mars Needs Women.”
“After I was fired from Disney, I did some of the worst movies ever made and I got involved with a manager who said it didn’t matter what you did as long as you kept working,” Kirk explained.
His personal life also took a downward spiral, getting mixed up with drugs. “I wound up completely broke,” he once shared. “I had no self-discipline and I almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times. It’s a miracle that I’m still around.”
His death was announced on Facebook Sept. 29 by friend and fellow child star Paul Petersen. “My friend of many decades, Tommy Kirk, was found dead last night,” he wrote. “Tommy was intensely private. He lived alone in Las Vegas, close to his friend and ‘Old Yeller’ co-star, Bev Washburn and it was she who called me this morning.”
“Tommy was gay and estranged from what remains of his blood-family,” Petersen added.
Kirk eventually discovered there is life outside of show business. Minton wrote in his interview that he noted, “Finally, I said, ‘to hell with the whole thing, to hell with show business.’ I’m gonna make a new life for myself, and I got off drugs, completely kicked all that stuff.”
Kirk started a carpet and upholstery cleaning business and had it for over 20 years . He told Minton that he wanted to be remembered for the Disney work, especially “Swiss Family Robinson,” his favorite.
In a bit of irony, the Disney company which is now know for its pro-active LGBTQ+ stance including its LGBTQ+ policies to support and affirm its employees, paid tribute via a tweet to Kirk marking his passage.
We are saddened by the passing of Tommy Kirk, the beloved and iconic star of such Disney family favorites from the 1950s and 1960s as Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones. pic.twitter.com/Puk03zO6xq
— Disney (@Disney) September 29, 2021
